Firestorm erupts over book about girls' murderer

Caitlin Rother, was at her "Lost Girls" book signing at the Mira Mesa Barnes & Noble when Edna Halbrook, left, and Carlos Avila, right, posted a banner in front of the table in support of the Amber Dubois and Chelsea King.
— Charlie Neuman

Caitlin Rother, was at her "Lost Girls" book signing at the Mira Mesa Barnes & Noble when Edna Halbrook, left, and Carlos Avila, right, posted a banner in front of the table in support of the Amber Dubois and Chelsea King.
— Charlie Neuman

Author Caitlin Rother said she decided to write a true-crime book about John Gardner in part because of the community outpouring she saw after he killed North County teens Amber Dubois and Chelsea King.

Thursday she was on the receiving end of a different kind of outpouring as the victims’ families and others angered by “Lost Girls” triggered an online firestorm that included trashing the book’s ratings on Amazon.com.

Brent King, Chelsea’s father, and Carrie McGonigle, Amber’s mother, issued a joint statement criticizing Rother for profiting from the girls’ deaths. They called on her to donate the proceeds to charity.

Holding a copy of the regulations for visiting prison inmates in California, Carrie McGonigle -- mother of murdered teen Amber Dubois -- asks Caitlin Rother at the book signing for "Lost Girls" about whether the author's visits with John Gardner were allowed. — Charlie Neuman

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Holding a copy of the regulations for visiting prison inmates in California, Carrie McGonigle -- mother of murdered teen Amber Dubois -- asks Caitlin Rother at the book signing for "Lost Girls" about whether the author's visits with John Gardner were allowed.
— Charlie Neuman

McGonigle also attended the official “Lost Girls” launch event at the Barnes & Noble in Mira Mesa Thursday evening. It drew about 100 people, many supporting Rother and others questioning her motives.

McGonigle arrived with a half-dozen others wearing orange T-shirts that said “Team Amber,” the organization she founded to help search for lost children. When Rother saw her she said, “I’m sorry for your loss.”

Although Rother said “I hope you can find something in the book that will help you,” McGonigle said she’s already read it and “there wasn’t much in it.”

At a press conference later, McGonigle said, “Some of the details that she put in there, it’s just wrong.” She said she thought of Chelsea’s parents and teenage brother learning about what’s in the book and being upset. “It’s nobody’s place to write those kind of details.”

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At the bookstore, Rother was asked by someone else about donating her profit to charity. “I spent 18 months doing research on this book and I don’t think it’s very realistic to ask me to spend that much time writing a book and not be able to pay any of my bills,” Rother said.

The book, which came out Tuesday, documents Gardner’s troubled and increasingly violent life in sometimes lurid detail. It includes a five-hour prison interview with Gardner in which he discusses the rape-murders.

Rother said she wrote the book in the hopes of preventing other murders by helping society understand what turns someone like Gardner into a predator.

The victims’ families declined to be interviewed for “Lost Girls.” In their joint statement, McGonigle and Brent King said, “With the publication of an unauthorized new book, our families are being driven backwards at a time when we’re all working so hard to move forward. We have already been through the most devastating storm of our lives so, although weathering this new one pales, we are deeply hurt.”

The statement was posted on the Facebook page for Chelsea’s Light, the nonprofit organization her parents founded after the 17-year-old Poway High senior was ambushed while jogging in a Rancho Bernardo park in February 2010. Amber, 14, was abducted a year earlier while walking to school in Escondido.

Within hours of the posting, almost 1,000 people had “liked” it on Facebook and more than 100 had added comments critical of Rother. “Just when my faith in human nature was on the verge of being restored, this terrible book came out,” Tricia Ross Lucia wrote.

Several posters suggested criticizing the book on Amazon, even though they hadn’t read it. By early evening, more than 40 people had given “Lost Girls” one star, the lowest rating, and quickly swamped three earlier five-star reviews. “Please don’t buy this book!” one wrote. “This is disgusting!” added another.

A few commenting on the “Chelsea’s Light” Facebook page were supportive of Rother. Former journalist Chris Saunders wrote, “These terrible crimes that tear apart families and our community need to be written about because there are many lessons to be learned from their chronicling.”

Rother spent 20 years working for the U-T and other newspapers. She has written five other true-crime books. In a statement Thursday, she said, “I wrote this book knowing there would be some controversy — not to make boatloads of money but because I feel very strongly that this was an opportunity to educate people about sex offenders.”

She said she’s tried unsuccessfully to organize charity events around the book.